The Virtual Stoa

Jasper Milvain buys the Saturday edition of the Guardian, and has very kindly forwarded to me a discussion of hair that appeared there yesterday, and which was curiously suppressed from the online edition. John Mullan was reviewing Alastair Fowler’s new edition of John Milton’s Paradise Lost.

Here’s Mullan:

“So if the longer notes at first appear digressive, they return you to the poem convinced that the editorial digression showed you the very by-ways of Milton’s imagination. Take the long paragraph of Fowler’s small print excited by Milton’s first description of Adam and Eve’s hairstyles — of Adam’s “hyacinthine locks” and Eve’s “wanton ringlets”. We start with Saint Paul’s strictures on when women should cover their hair, then wander through a mini-essay on the significance of hair in epic poetry, a parenthesis on Milton’s own hairstyle and hair-colouring, suggestive examples of the depiction of women’s hair in 17th-century painting and some speculation about Milton’s “special sexual interest in hair”. You might think this is like listening to an engagingly eccentric professor, free-associating, in the library of his mind, yet soon the clinching references to the ways the poem fixes on Eve’s “golden tresses” convince you otherwise. Her “dishevelled” hair signifies what is both lovely and vulnerable about here, and the poet is as fascinated as the devil who gazes at her from his hiding place.”

Here’s what Fowler wrote in the 1971 edition of his book (I think I’ve got a later edition at home, so I’ll post any of Fowler’s subsequent thoughts on hair before too long):

“iv.301-8. The hair-length proper for each sex follows directly from the statement of their hierarchic relation; for, according to St Paul, ‘a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man: for her hair is given her for a covering’ (1 Cor. xi 7, 15; cp. the A. V. marginal glass on 10, which explains the covering is a ’sign that she is under the power of her husband’). hyacinthine locks] When Athene ’shed grace about his head and shoulders’, Odysseus’ hair flower ‘like the hyacinth flower’ (Homer, Od. vi 231). If a colour were implied, it might be either blue, the colour of the hyacinth flower or gem (i.e., the sapphire; cp. l. 237n), or just possibly tawny (the hyacinth of heraldry, near to the colour of M.’s own hair), or black (Eustathius’ gloss on the Homeric passage) or very dark brown (Suidas’ gloss); in fact, almost any colour at all. But it is just as likely that a shape is meant (the idealized treatment accorded to hair in antique sculpture?), or an allusion to the beautiful youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo but doomed to die. The elaborateness of the present passage lends some support to the theory that M. had a special sexual interest in hair. (In this connection cp. 496f, Lycidas 69, 175.)”

And here’s John Milton, Paradise Lost, iv.300-311:

“His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
She as a veil down to her slender waist
Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved
As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.”

There’s a story in today’s Observer about the children’s book, And Tango Makes Three, based on the true story of the love of Roy and Silo, two male penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo. We bought a copy in San Francisco’s A Different Light last year for one of our nephews, and it’s a pretty good book, with lots of pictures of penguins in it.

The Observer article, however, does rather overdraw the contrast between “liberal Manhattanites” and “small towns in the American heartland”. Tango is basically a conservative text, which strongly implies that the gay penguins’ relationship is legitimated through the baby-penguin-rearing activity that transforms them into a family unit deserving of respect. So it’s basically an Andrew-Sullivan-inflected gay penguin children’s book.

What America needs is a book to celebrate the lives of queer and sluttish non-baby-penguin-rearing male penguins. This is a group that is strikingly underrepresented in America’s lucrative and high-profile children’s book market.

In addition to its pair-bonded lesbian geese (Alice and Gertrude, I think), San Francisco Zoo used to have a nymphomaniac lady penguin. I wonder what happened to her.

The Stoa’s Fabius correspondent writes, very possibly for the last time:

Chris’s One-Time Dining Companion Not to be French President in 2007 Shock

Ah, so it was not to be. The results from the Parti Socialiste’s primaries show the Stoa’s candidate Laurent Fabius came in third place with 18.7% of the vote, behind Ségolène Royal on 60.7% and Dominique Strauss-Kahn on 20.6%. This means the second round of voting in which Fabius had hoped to come through will not take place, and Fabius has rallied to support Royal for president in the grand combat against the Right and extreme Right.

Still, as you can see from this handy map on Le Monde’s website, at least Fabius managed to come in first place in two departments (Haute-Normandie, where his constituency is, and Haute-Corse), which is more than can be said for DSK.

Plus this may not be the end of Fabius’ presidential ambitions forever. As he has himself pointed out, by the time of the next election in 2012, he will only be the same age as Mitterrand was when first elected in 1981… (A cartoon in this week’s Le Canard Enchaîné satirically suggested that in the event of failing to be selected as PS candidate Fabius may instead grow a José Bové-style moustache in a bid to be adopted as the unified candidate of the anti-capitalist hard Left!)

Nevertheless, the outcome of last night’s vote means that the Laurent-Fabius-Watch will be taking an extended sabbatical, at least for the time being.

The complete Laurent-Fabius-Watch is here.

Long before he published his fine book about football in Eastern Europe, Behind the Curtain, Jonathan Wilson was writing for The Voice of the Turtle (currently in hibernation). Here’s his review of Puskas on Puskas: The Life and Times of a Footballing Legend, from 1999.

UPDATE [2.30pm]: I see that Jonathan also supplied something of an obit for tehgraun.

Victor Serge, revolutionary socialist, born 30 December 1890 in Brussels, died 17 November 1947 in Mexico City.

Robert Owen, utopian socialist, born 14 May 1771, died 17 November 1858.

The arrival of Mabel Atkinson at #236 brings to an end the fourth year of Dead Socialist Watching, which must make this one of the longest running blogserials in bloghistory. The complete DSW archive now begins here, there are still plenty more Dead Socialists to Watch and/or celebrate; their ranks are ever-expanding, alas, and your nominations are always, as ever, more than welcome.

Jennie Lee (also), Labour MP and Minister for the Arts, born 3 November 1904, died 16 November 1988.

Mabel Atkinson, daughter of a militant suffragette, an early enthusiast for the bicycle (‘the first great emancipation’ for women), one of the first women to study at the University of Glasgow, author of Local Government in Scotland (1904), and (you will be amazed to hear, given the title of the book just mentioned) an active member of the Fabian Society, which published her 1914 pamphlet on “The Economic Foundations of the Women’s Movement”. She emigrated to South Africa in 1921 and taught in Natal, later becoming involved in campaigns to establish (segregated) higher education for non-whites. Born in Northumberland, England, 2 May 1876; died Durban, South Africa, 16 November 1958.

Here’s a new blog that seems to be concentrating on discussions of Habermas and pictures of tapirs. This seems to me to be an extremely promising combination.

Spotted at the IMDb Reviews of Borat section:

Cheap Kazakhstan propaganda! Borats claim that Kazakhstan produces the best potassium in the world is totally unsubstantiated. It is well known in the countries of the former Soviet Union that it is Uzbekistan that produces the highest quality potassium not Kazakhstan! His claim that all other countries in the world are ran by little girls is also easily dismissed. Many former Soviet Union countries are run by grown men! Although the U.K was once run by fire breathing dragon woman Margaret Thatcher you could never call her a girl! Borat is the possessor of a terrible singing voice. How can he sing great patriotic songs with a voice like that?

LONG LIVE UZBECKISTAN! Uzbekistan for all your potassium & patriotic song needs.

[via Michael]

Elisabeth Ayrton, novelist, cookery writer, author of The Cookery of England and Doric Temples, and lifelong socialist, born Worplesdon, 2 February 1910, died Rockhampton, 15 November 1991.

“They are available in two colours (blue or green)…” Over here.

The Stoa’s PS correspondent writes…

Le Marathon Qui Se Transforme en Sprint

(That’s how the French TV news this morning put it). Well the campaign has enters its final days and your correspondent, on a brief visit to Paris, is filing this report from an internet café in the building in Belleville where Edith Piaf was born… There is little sign of Fabius-mania on the streets, just a few posters for a ‘grand meeting’ with rival candidate Dominique Strauss-Kahn. But recent opinion polls suggest dramatic improvements in Fabius’ rating, up from 6 or 7 per cent to an astonishing 9 or 10 or even
11 per cent! That’s less than 50 points behind Ségolène Royal, suggesting the crowds of ecstatic fabiusiens seen shouting “Lau-rent Pres-i-dent” on the TV news last night - and Fabius’ own prediction that he will come second in Thursday’s first round and go on to win the second round - may not be as far from reality as cynical readers may suspect. Indeed, since none of the polls have been taken among Socialist Party members, the only people who can vote in this election, there is good reason to think they underestimate his support. While Royal and DSK have suggested policies to appeal to right-wing voters, Fabius has namechecked many Dead Socialists in calling for a return to the fundamentals of the “party of Jaurès”. Given the disproportionate number of schoolteachers among the party’s members, he has also taken advantage of a video circulating on the internet in which Royal suggests that teachers are not working hard enough as they have time to give private tuition. “It’s false, false, absolutely false!”.

Commuters picking up their copies of Métro at the RER station this morning were greeted by an exclusive interview with Fabius - illustrated by six photos taken in quck succession of him making a series of hand gestures - in which he declares his main message to activists is “Be free! Don’t ask who other people are voting for but what you want youself for your country and the Left”.

On that note, we await the results on Friday…

There’s a baby elephant in Chester, oddly enough. Over here. More here.

Bessie Braddock, Liverpudlian socialist Labour MP and local legend. More here. Born 24 September 1899, died 13 November 1970.

The news on the radio yesterday was full of stuff about Remembrance events. Now I thought we had Remembrance Sunday, and everyone else did their thing on 11 November (in roughly the way that the entire planet celebrates 1 May, except in the UK, where we get the first Monday in May as a holiday). So has Remembrance Day expanded to fill the whole weekend because there are a lot more troops than usual being killed around the world, and the media is sensitive about this kind of thing, or is this a sign that our distinctive, parochial Sunday observance is under threat from the forces of globalisation?

The Departed: Jolly. Much better than the deeply crappy Gangs of New York.
The Wind That Shakes the Barley: Quite enjoyed it; made me want to see Michael Collins.
Borat: The reviews describe the good jokes pretty well, so you don’t actually have to go and see this.
La Tourneuse de pages: very well acted; great fun.

I suppose I’m really just marking time, while waiting for Casino Royale to open.

Victor Adler, Austrian social democrat, born 24 June 1852 in Prague; died 11 November 1918 in Vienna.

“… I’m saying that Stonewall Jackson was trash himself. Him and Lee, and all the rest of them Rebs. You, too.”

Jack Palance, RIP.

The UK number one single on the day I was born was “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool” by Jimmy Osmond. I think I knew that, but it’s good to be reminded. [here, via]

Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, born 19 December 1906 in Kamenskoye (now Dneprodzerzhinsk), died 10 November 1982.

Dead Socialist Watch, #126: Canaan Banana, first President of independent Zimbabwe, born 5 March 1936, died 10 November, 2003.

And, just to branch out into relevant adjacent territory, here are three key remarks about wigs from the philosophers who matter. Two of these have appeared on the Virtual Stoa before, but if you minded about that sort of thing you’d have stopped reading decades ago.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, on his “reform”:

“The moment my resolution was confirmed, I wrote a note to M. de Francueil, communicating to him my intentions, thanking him and Madam Dupin for all goodness, and offering them my services in the way of my new profession. Francueil did not understand my note, and, thinking I was still in the delirium of fever, hastened to my apartment; but he found me so determined, that all he could say to me was without the least effect. He went to Madam Dupin, and told her and everybody he met, that I was become insane. I let him say what he pleased, and pursued the plan I had conceived. I began the change in my dress; I quitted laced cloaths and white stockings; I put on a round wig, laid aside my sword, and sold my watch; saying to myself, with inexpressible pleasure: “Thank Heaven! I shall no longer want to know the hour!”

Immanuel Kant explains why wig-makers, but not barbers, should have the vote:

“He who does a piece of work can sell it to someone else, just as if it were his own property. But guaranteeing one’s labour is not the same as selling a commodity. The domestic servant, the shop assistant, the labourer, or even the barber, are merely labourers, not artists (artifices, in the wider sense) or members of the state, and are thus unqualified to be citizens. And although the man to whom I give my firewood to chop and the tailor to whom I give material to make into clothes both appear to have a similar relationship towards me, the former differs from the latter in the same way as the barber from the wig-maker (to whom I may in fact have given the requisite hair) or the labourer from the artist or tradesman, who does a piece of work which belongs to him until he is paid for it. For the latter, in pursuing his trade, exchanges his property with someone else, while the former allows someone else to make use of him. But I do admit that it is somewhat difficult to define the qualifications which entitle anyone to claim the status of being his own master.”

Karl Marx:

“I may negate powdered wigs, but that still leaves me with unpowdered wigs.”